page_title: Censorship in Turkey
hierarchical_section_title: Censorship in Turkey
caption_attribution_description: Thousands of Turks gathered in some 40 cities and towns around the country on Sunday, May 15th, to join marches organized on Facebook against state Internet censorship. The trigger for the protests was a decision by Turkey’s Internet regulator, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, or BTK, to introduce a selection of filters that Turkish Internet users would choose from before browsing the Internet, beginning in August. Under a decision on “Rules and Procedures of the Safety of Internet Use” approved by the BTK in February, Internet users in Turkey will have to choose one of four Internet packages: family, children, domestic or standard. The list of websites filtered by each package will be decided by the BTK but will not be made public. The change will be implemented starting August 22. According to BTK Chairman Tayfun Acarer, Internet users will maintain their current access to Internet websites if they chose the standard package. “How is it possible that [the BTK’s decision] is being manipulated in this way?” he asked, saying a similar application was also available in European countries. “If we were to require everyone to take the children’s package, I would agree with the criticism” Acarer said. He added that people would be subscribed to packages other than the standard one only upon their own demand. In December 2010 the OpenNet Initiative, a non-partisan organization based in Canada and the United States, classified Internet censorship in Turkey as selective (third lowest of four classifications) in the political, social, and Internet tools areas. Reporters Without Borders, an international censorship watchdog organization, included Turkey on its 2011 list of 16 countries “under surveillance” (the less serious of two Internet censorship lists that it maintains), saying: ‘The year 2010 was marked by the widely covered deblocking of the video-sharing website YouTube which, unfortunately, did not equate to a lifting of online censorship in Turkey. In a country where taboo topics abound, several thousand websites are still inaccessible and legal proceedings against online journalists persist.’ Haberturk newspaper said 50,000 joined a protest centered on the city’s Taksim Square, while CNN-Turk reported “hundreds of thousands” taking to the streets in demonstrations across the country. More than 600,000 people joined a Facebook page named “Internetime Dokunma!” or “Don’t Touch My Internet!” The group’s organizers say Turkish authorities have already blocked 60,000 websites.
context_page_description: Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, the latter taking precedence over domestic law, according to Article 90 of the Constitution of Turkey.
  Despite legal provisions, freedom of the press in Turkey has steadily deteriorated from 2010 onwards, with a precipitous decline following the attempted coup in July 2016. President Tayyip Erdoğan has arrested hundreds of journalists, closed or taken over dozens of media outlets, and prevented journalists and their families from traveling. By some accounts, Turkey currently accounts for one-third of all journalists imprisoned around the world.
  Since 2013, Freedom House ranks Turkey as "Not Free". Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey at the 149th place out of over 180 countries, between Mexico and DR Congo, with a score of 44.16. In the third quarter of 2015, the independent Turkish press agency Bianet recorded a strengthening of attacks on opposition media under the Justice and Development Party interim government.
context_section_description: Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, the latter (in theory) taking precedence over domestic law, according to Article 90 of the Constitution of Turkey (so amended in 2004).
  Despite legal provisions, freedom of the press in Turkey has steadily deteriorated from 2010 onwards, with a precipitous decline following the attempted coup in July 2016. President Tayyip Erdoğan has arrested hundreds of journalists, closed or taken over dozens of media outlets, and prevented journalists and their families from traveling. By some accounts, Turkey currently accounts for one-third of all journalists imprisoned around the world.
  Since 2013, Freedom House ranks Turkey as "Not Free". Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey at the 149th place out of over 180 countries, between Mexico and DR Congo, with a score of 44.16. In the third quarter of 2015, the independent Turkish press agency Bianet recorded a strengthening of attacks on opposition media under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) interim government. Bianet's final 2015 monitoring report confirmed this trend and underlined that, once the AKP had regained a majority in parliament after the AKP interim government period, the Turkish government further intensified its pressure on the country's media.
  According to Freedom House,
  The government enacted new laws that expanded both the state’s power to block websites and the surveillance capability of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Journalists faced unprecedented legal obstacles as the courts restricted reporting on corruption and national security issues. The authorities also continued to aggressively use the penal code, criminal defamation laws, and the antiterrorism law to crack down on journalists and media outlets.
  Verbal attacks on journalists by senior politicians—including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the incumbent prime minister who was elected president in August—were often followed by harassment and even death threats against the targeted journalists on social media. Meanwhile, the government continued to use the financial and other leverage it holds over media owners to influence coverage of politically sensitive issues. Several dozen journalists, including prominent columnists, lost their jobs as a result of such pressure during the year, and those who remained had to operate in a climate of increasing self-censorship and media polarization.
  In 2012 and 2013 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Turkey as the worst journalist jailer in the world (ahead of Iran and China), with 49 journalists sitting in jail in 2012 and 40 in 2013. Twitter's 2014 Transparency Report showed that Turkey filed over five times more content removal requests to Twitter than any other country in the second half of 2014, with requests rising another 150% in 2015.
  During its 12-year rule, the ruling AKP has gradually expanded its control over media. Today, numerous newspapers, TV channels and internet portals dubbed as Yandaş Medya ("Partisan Media") or Havuz Medyası ("Pool Media") continue their heavy pro-government propaganda. Several media groups receive preferential treatment in exchange for AKP-friendly editorial policies. Some of these media organizations were acquired by AKP-friendly businesses through questionable funds and processes. Media not friendly to AKP, on the other hand, are threatened with intimidation, inspections and fines. These media group owners face similar threats to their other businesses. An increasing number of columnists have been fired for criticizing the AKP leadership.
caption: 2011 protests against internet censorship in Turkey
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